


Nothing Gold

by Dracoduceus



Series: Nothing Gold [6]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Everyone Needs A Hug, Hanahaki AU, M/M, hanahaki aftermath
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-16
Updated: 2018-03-16
Packaged: 2019-04-01 00:45:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13986831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dracoduceus/pseuds/Dracoduceus
Summary: “My student,” Zenyatta said, the orbs around his neck gently spinning in the pull of their lazy orbit. “I sense great disquiet within you. What ails you?”Almost immediately Genji slumped out of his proper form. He shoved himself to his feet and paced. “Itried, master,” he said, his defeated tone so at odds with the agitation he gave off. “I tried. I spent years learning forgiveness and acceptance and how to…” he sucked in a breath and tipped his head back to stare at the way the boughs of the trees painted clouds in the sky as he gathered himself. “It took me so long to learn how toforgive himand towantto repair…everything between us. And now there is nothing –canbe nothing – because he cut his heart out.”





	Nothing Gold

**Author's Note:**

> This time the Hanahaki is kind of in the background…this time I wanted to focus on how it affects everyone else rather than the person choking on the petals and their love interest. 
> 
> Zenyatta-heavy…maybe even Genyatta if you squint. I purposefully wrote it somewhat vague so y’all can imagine what you like. 
> 
> Hopefully this is less depressing than the other two.

“My student,” Zenyatta said, the orbs around his neck gently spinning in the pull of their lazy orbit. “I sense great disquiet within you. What ails you?”

Almost immediately Genji slumped out of his proper form. He shoved himself to his feet and paced. “I tried, master,” he said, his defeated tone so at odds with the agitation he gave off. “I  _ tried _ . I spent years learning forgiveness and acceptance and how to…” he sucked in a breath and tipped his head back to stare at the way the boughs of the trees painted clouds in the sky as he gathered himself. “It took me so long to learn how to  _ forgive him _ and to  _ want  _ to repair…everything between us. And now there is nothing –  _ can _ be nothing – because he cut his heart out.”

Zenyatta hummed, somewhat unsurprised by the outburst. As a healer – mental, physical, spiritual – he had known of Hanzo’s particular affliction and as such had counseled him. No doubt had Genji been paying attention he would have realized this but it was not something he would voice out loud to his student. Not like this.

“Is that not selfish of you, my student?” Zenyatta asked, turning his faceplate to watch the play of the sun on the crests of the waves as they came to break upon the cliff.

Like a caged animal, Genji snorted. “He took the easy path. If only he had…”

“I heard a story once,” Zenyatta said when Genji trailed off, carefully weighing his words against confidentiality and propriety. “Of an Empty Woman who had her heart cut out and yet she still married the man who had not returned her love.”

Genji scoffed. “I don’t see…why didn’t he just tell them?”

“That is not our place to guess,” Zenyatta pointed out gently. “Nor is it our place to judge the choices and actions of others, not for such a personal choice.”

“I just…I thought he had been doing so good,” Genji said, a little brokenly. His scarf flirted with the brisk sea breeze as he settled back on the ground beside Zenyatta.

The monk hummed in agreement. “ _ Is _ , my student; he  _ is _ doing so well.”

“ _ But he has no heart _ ,” Genji snapped.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, broken only by the soft chimes of Zenyatta’s orbs.

“I’m sorry, master,” Genji said after a while, bowing his head.

“I do not have a heart, either,” Zenyatta pointed out. “Nor does Bastion or Orisa. Do you think us unable to feel?”

Genji’s head snapped up. “It’s not the same.”

Zenyatta hummed. In his memory core he played back one of his many confidential talks with Hanzo, replayed the wistful look on his face that always seemed to herald a round of hacking coughs that brought up blood, bile, and tragically cheerful petals.

_ The blood is a recent development _ , Angela Ziegler had said.  _ It is why we are pushing forward his surgery _ . Her lips pinched, the only betrayal of her personal opinion of Hanzo’s choice.  _ We need to verify that he is of sound mind and understands what is about to happen _ . She had hoped that he would change Hanzo’s mind but knew that he wouldn’t even try – one of the reasons that she had asked him to rather than pursue this task on her own.

The pamphlet that she gave him was ridiculous – and she knew it by the disgusted twist of her lips so he didn’t comment on it. A silhouette of a couple holding hands as they walked into the sunset, rose petals littering the path behind them. From the graphics alone it looked to be at least a decade old – perhaps even older than Zenyatta himself. In elegant calligraphy more belonging on the cover of a romance novel it read,  _ Hanahaki and You _ .

_ It’s the best pamphlet out there _ , Angela Ziegler said, looking and sounding like it killed her to admit it.  _ Despite its… _ she had waved her hands vaguely and Zenyatta had nodded to show that he understood.

His thoughts and memories took up less than a second, run on a secondary processor. “How is it different, my student?” Zenyatta asked.

Genji looked away. “Because he is not my brother,” he admitted quietly.

Thoughtfully, Zenyatta hummed. He asked, even though he already knew the answer, having done extensive research on the topic before speaking to Hanzo as Angela Ziegler had requested, “The removal of Hanahaki blossoms does not affect memory, correct?”

“No…”

Zenyatta nodded. “Has his physical body changed except for the removal of a tumor that would have killed him and the addition of a scar?”

“No,” Genji said. “But-”

“Does he remember you as his brother? Does he care for you as his brother?” Zenyatta asked even though he knew the answer already. “Does he still care for the team?”

Genji whipped his head to face Zenyatta. “ _ But he is not my brother! _ ”

The echoes of his outburst seemed to fade very slowly. “Can the same not be said of you, my pupil?” Genji deflated slightly, turning his face from his master. Zenyatta continued, “Did he not say the same things to you when you invited him here? Did he not ask you,  _ how could you be my brother if I had killed him? _ How many times did he say of you,  _ that thing is not my brother? _ ”

“But I did not choose to  _ cut out my heart _ ,” Genji snapped and it was the straw that broke the camel’s back; he vaulted over the edge of the cliff and clambered away.

Zenyatta hummed and his orbs spun. He listened to the roar of the waves and felt the disquiet that yawned in Genji’s soul – and the void in Hanzo’s. “I am sorry that you had to hear that, Hanzo.”

“Do not be,” the elder Shimada said in his strangely empty voice as he turned the corner of the path and entered the little clearing where the monk sat. “There is no reason to apologize to someone that cannot feel sadness or remorse.”

“Perhaps,” Zenyatta said mildly. “Do you regret your decision?”

Hanzo shrugged as he slipped into perfect  _ seiza _ . “I cannot feel regret or guilt,” he said, tipping his head back like a flower turning toward the sun. “I can hardly feel the warmth of the sun on my face. It is there but there is nothing in me to care about it.”

A part of Zenyatta wanted to ask more but there was no tactful way to do it. Despite Hanzo being “heartless”, despite knowing that he couldn’t hurt the man physically or emotionally, Zenyatta still saw no reason to cross that line.

“I  _ remember  _ emotion though,” Hanzo said after a pause. “I think that if I could, I would…I would not regret what I did but I would regret the pain it is causing everyone else.”

Zenyatta hummed. He absently sent an orb to bob around Hanzo. It made a single wobbly rotation and returned to him.  _ There is nothing there to heal _ , it seemed to say to him. “Time can heal,” he said.

The archer tilted his head to look at him. His eyes were blank, empty; there was no pride or joy or peace. It was as if Zenyatta stared into the eyes of a statue but even a statue showed more emotion than Hanzo could. The thought saddened Zenyatta. “Time will not heal this,” Hanzo murmured.

* * *

Arguments between the brothers weren’t uncommon but in recent months there had been noted improvement.

Today marked the first day since Hanzo’s recovery that they argued. It did not go well.

Genji drew his  _ ōdachi _ and Hanzo didn’t flinch away from touching a blade to defend himself – he drew Genji’s  _ wakizashi _ and blocked a swing that in the past he would simply have dodged. It was fortunate that Genji was so startled, so surprised, because it allowed McCree to step in and separate them.

In the past, before his surgery, Hanzo would have shaken, would have broken something inside to merely touch the hilt or scabbard of the blade. This Hanzo now, the one without fear or pain or guilt, was almost the master swordsman he once was over a decade ago. (It didn’t work that way, being so long away from a blade and being able to take it up again with the same strength and skill but that didn’t mean that Hanzo _ couldn’t _ .)

Now it was Genji that shied away – the image of his brother holding a sword ingrained in his memory forever. He ran while Hanzo calmly wiped down the  _ wakizashi _ and slipped it back into its scabbard.

“You should go after him,” Hanzo said blankly to Zenyatta as McCree tugged him out of the kitchen. “I have hurt him.”

Genji was in the midst of a panic attack when Zenyatta caught up to him. Used to this even though he hadn’t seen it for quite some time, Zenyatta knelt on the ground and rolled one of his orbs through the air. Genji caught it. “He would have killed me.”

“No,” Zenyatta disagreed. “He was defending himself.”

“What’s stopping him now?” Genji asked bitterly. “If his guilt is not there to keep him in check?”

Zenyatta gave out a buzzing sigh. “Oh, my student,” he murmured sadly.

* * *

“I should speak to someone else of this,” Hanzo said the next time they met in an official capacity. “I do not mean to imply that you would, but I do not want to cause you to choose between myself or my brother.”

“Is  _ want _ an emotion?” Zenyatta wondered.

Hanzo cocked his head to the side. “No,” he said. “I cannot explain it. It is not a feeling but I can want.”

“Do you often want?”

The archer considered that again. “Yes,” he said. “I want my brother to be happy. I want… _ him _ to be happy. I want my team to be safe. I want often.”

Zenyatta hummed and his orbs spun. “You do not put me in such a position,” he said carefully.

“But I am capable of it,” Hanzo pointed out. “You care deeply for Genji though in what capacity I cannot tell and I do not  _ want _ to know.” He tilted his head and if his voice had not been so flat, Zenyatta would have thought that he was teasing. “I do not want to put you in such a position.”

“Does it make you uncomfortable to speak of this?” Hanzo wanted to know.

“Discomfort is something I cannot feel.”

Zenyatta regarded Hanzo. None of his orbs would stick for very long with Hanzo before returning to Zenyatta’s orbit though he could still sense the void within Hanzo’s soul. “If you do not want me here – independent from not wanting me to feel a conflict between your emotions and your brother’s – then we can figure out an alternative solution.”

“It does not matter to me,” Hanzo replied. “I cannot care but I know that you can.”

Life went on but the brothers’ relationship soured further.

“We could have  _ two _ swordsmen,” Winston suggested somewhat wistfully during a team meeting. He peered at Hanzo who stared impassively back. “There are a lot of possibilities that are opened up now.”

He looked surprised when Hanzo said, as ever in his flat voice, “No. I will not.”

“Why not?” Winston wanted to know and McCree’s face contorted into an expression of concern.

“Just because I  _ can _ pick up a blade does not mean that I  _ want _ to,” Hanzo said. “I will remain as I am.”

The team was quiet for a long moment. “Want is an emotion,” Genji said with painful hope in his voice.

“No, it’s not,” McCree told him far gentler than Hanzo could.

There was a long moment of awkward silence as Genji visibly deflated. Hanzo broke it and said, “Just because there  _ can _ be two swordsmen does not mean that there  _ should _ be.”

“Just because we  _ can _ have two snipers doesn’t mean we should,” Soldier 76 snapped back. “You should consider other options for the team – it’s not all about you.”

Hanzo shrugged. “What about healers?” Ana asked sharply and Soldier 76 flinched. “We have four on the team – do you wish to switch one of us to another role? Last time I checked, you hadn’t seemed too opposed to the extra healing in the field.”

They scheduled extra training without another peep about Hanzo’s role.

It was McCree – biased though he may be – that noticed Hanzo limping later that night after sparring. “My arm is stiff as well,” Hanzo said neutrally when he was asked at the dinner table.

“Does it hurt?” Angela Ziegler asked, her forehead creasing with worry.

“Empty Ones do not feel pain,” Hanzo replied.

He had partially dislocated his hip, they found after running scans, and the muscles of his shoulder and chest were red and inflamed, his skin bruised around his scar. If he was able to, Zenyatta would have breathed a sigh of relief when one of his orbs finally “stuck” to Hanzo and lingered there. He and Angela Ziegler watched on the live scan as swelling reduced, bruising faded, and his hip popped back into its socket.

“We need to work around you in a different way,” Zenyatta told Hanzo thoughtfully. “You say you cannot feel pain or fatigue?”

“No,” Hanzo replied.

Zenyatta nodded thoughtfully. “Blackwatch employed Empty Ones,” Angela Ziegler said, spitting the name out like it was poison. “They were known for it. We could speak with McCree and Genji about what they used to do.”

“Blackwatch agents were expendable,” McCree said when they asked him a few minutes later. He had been lingering in the waiting area with Genji who left as soon as he saw that Hanzo was alright. “We didn’t quite work as a team or care about each other’s well-being more than to ensure that they could continue the mission.”

Angela Ziegler’s lips were pressed thin. “Long-term that is a terrible idea,” she said.

“Ain’t no one said it was a  _ good _ mindset.”

“What fail-safes were in place to keep an agent moving?” Hanzo wanted to know.

McCree shrugged. “None. If they could walk, they’d walk. If they couldn’t, they informed us and were left behind or shot.”

No one seemed to like that answer (Zenyatta mused to himself that it was quite difficult to tell what  _ Hanzo _ thought of this, if anything) and Angela Ziegler drummed her fingers on her crossed arms. “I’m pulling you from all missions for the next two weeks,” she informed Hanzo who nodded once. After a brief pause as if expecting him to argue, she continued, “We need to find out how to work with you to ensure that your health in the short- and long-term remains…”

“Healthy?” Zenyatta suggested and she made a face at him.

Hanzo nodded again. “Very well,” he said. He and McCree both glanced down at their coms as they chirped with a scheduled alarm.

“Dinner time,” McCree told the healers. “We almost missed it. Is there anything else?” When Zenyatta and Angela Ziegler shook their heads, McCree waved and ushered Hanzo out.

When the door had closed behind them, Angela Ziegler slumped and Zenyatta sent an orb to bob around her head. He released a staticky sigh as he felt the reverb of it as it spun in her orbit. “I regret agreeing to this,” she confided in Zenyatta. “It hurts to see him so…”

Thinking back to his conversation with Genji on the cliffs, Zenyatta let out a buzzing sigh.

* * *

Zenyatta watched Hanzo. He was certain that Hanzo was aware – being Empty didn’t mean that his senses or instincts were dulled, after all – but he made no show of hiding anything.

“You are upset,” Hanzo observed the next time they met. “I am making you upset because I am Empty.”

Zenyatta carefully considered that before answering. “Not upset,” he said at last. “I am curious but I do not want to pry. I am concerned but there is nothing I can do.”

“Your orbs will not stay with me,” Hanzo said, his eyes dropping to the gentle orbit they made around Zenyatta’s waist. “It unnerves you.”

_ Just because he’s Heartless doesn’t mean that he can’t  _ see, Zenyatta reminded himself. “I sense…I cannot put it in words. I can feel the void in you and it goes against all of my instincts to not help you.”

“But you cannot,” Hanzo murmured. “And that also upsets you.”

“Yes.”

Hanzo hummed but said nothing more. He let Zenyatta change the subject.

“How do you think you are…transitioning to this way of life?” Angela Ziegler had given him a specific set of questions now and he wanted to get through them. This was for his health and his file but Zenyatta, perhaps a little biased, wanted to get to other things – like his relationship with his brother.

“McCree…helps.”

Zenyatta nodded. “Can you think of something we can do to help?”

“I cannot feel anything,” Hanzo pointed out. “That is a not a good question to ask me.”

“Dr. Ziegler asked me to ask you,” Zenyatta said gently.

“I understand.”

Zenyatta carefully considered his words. “I do not think there is much that we can do,” he admitted. “But we all need to learn together as a team. Perhaps I am a bit…biased but…”

“You wish to ask me about Genji.”

“Yes.”

Hanzo bowed his head. “I see that I hurt him,” he said. “I cannot change that I do. To him I am no longer his brother.”

“I wish I could disagree,” Zenyatta said with a sigh. “But…”

He watched as Hanzo lifted a hand to his chest to rest over the crossed scar left behind by his surgery. “I heard him the day we tried to meditate together,” he reminded Zenyatta. “He believes I took the easy way out. Perhaps I did.”

Zenyatta sighed helplessly.

* * *

A week later, Zenyatta found his wayward student sprawled out over the edge of the roof, looking down at the garden area. It was his favorite brooding spot and when Zenyatta knew that something troubled him, he could always find him there in a similar slump. “Good morning, my student,” he said, gently rolling an orb to Genji who let it bounce in the air beside his elbow.

“Good morning, master,” Genji mumbled back.

“You missed breakfast,” Zenyatta pointed out. “Hanzo made miso and pork for you.”

Genji snorted and turned his head away as Zenyatta drifted up beside him. “I’m not hungry.” He jumped when Zenyatta placed the tray down. A bowl of rice, a covered bowl of miso, a sliced chunk of marinated pork, and a fried egg met his stare. “I don’t want to eat.”

“I will not force you,” Zenyatta said gently. He paused for a moment then asked, “What has upset you, my student?”

Despite his words, Genji unclipped his mask and poured the miso into his mouth, leaving behind chunks of tofu and seaweed that still clung to the sides of the bowl. He gestured at Zenyatta with the bowl before he put it back on the tray. “You and I, our relationship with my broth-…with  _ Hanzo _ is different and yet… _ and yet _ -” he gestured sharply over the edge of the roof and Zenyatta found McCree and Hanzo hovering over a plant in the garden.

Hanzo was watching McCree as he used a rusty watering can to water a lively plant that was beginning to fill with buds. If Zenyatta were to turn up his audials he would probably be able to hear their quiet conversation but he didn’t and let the words be stolen by the brisk sea breeze that managed to make it past the wall.

“Not a hitch,” Genji said. “Not a slip, not a one.”

Watching them, Zenyatta was hit with an epiphany. He folded his hands over his chestplate. “Oh.”

“They knew each other before,” Genji said a little bitterly, stabbing into the yolk and watching it spread across the plate. “Back then I didn’t care why Blackwatch was there, but it was and he and Hanzo…well, no one suspected that they were  _ a thing _ , you know?” Angrily he folded the egg in half with his chopsticks and shoved the whole thing into his mouth. “Then they had to leave and then Hanzo…” he paused tellingly as he swallowed the enormous mouthful. “Well, I died and Hanzo became a ghost.”

Zenyatta thought back to how he and Hanzo first met, then how Hanzo was introduced to the rest of the team. His eyes had lit up in a strange way when he saw McCree.

He had almost looked…happy. At peace.

They had immediately started trading barbs and at first Zenyatta had been concerned that someone would need to break them up but then…like a bubble everything shattered and the two had laughed and embraced and that…

…that was that.

“And now he’s Empty,” Genji said with a forlorn sigh.

“You are jealous,” Zenyatta murmured, disappointed in himself for not realizing sooner.

Genji set him a poisonous look that fell immediately. He looked down quickly and busied himself picking the flesh of the fish from the bones. “I was friends with McCree in Blackwatch. Good friends,” he admitted. “But we didn’t talk about Hanzo. I just assumed that everyone hated him too. And now…” he peeked over the edge of the roof and Zenyatta followed his gaze. Hanzo had walked up with McCree and kneeled beside him in the dirt beside the plant. Their hands were brushed the brilliant yellow and bronze and orange buds reverently. “Now he’s the only one that understands Hanzo.”

Watching them interact, Zenyatta had yet another very sudden realization. He watched the two of them closely, watched their magnetic push and pull as they hovered over the plant. He watched hands chase hands and linger, watched eyes as cold as a statue’s trace arms and necks and shoulders like physical touch.

He watched their interactions and heard them speak in soft, dead voices while their bodies danced like a pair of nesting birds.

“Yes,” he said faintly, aware that Genji looked up at him in surprise. “I see that now.”

A few days later he watched with the rest of the team as the two of them shared a kiss in the garden in front of the blooming marigold bush and sighed to himself. 

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like Zenyatta would have a tic where he would roll or toss one of his orbs at people for even the smallest reasons. Need healing? Here, have an orb. Did Lena steal the pancake you had been eyeing? Here, have an orb. 
> 
> Maybe that’s just me projecting my own nervousness on him, though. But I like the idea that he just keeps trying to keep people happy - physically, mentally, spiritually - and is constantly sharing his orbs with his team. It is for this reason (and pretty much this reason only) that he is uncomfortable around Hanzo after his surgery - he can sense the void in him and has no way to help him.
> 
> Regardless, thank you to everyone that made it to the end. I really appreciate all the comments and kudos I'm getting. Feel free to come and visit/yell at me on tumblr at [classywastelandbread](https://classywastelandbread.tumblr.com) :D
> 
> ~DC


End file.
